Click.
I woke when the guard opened our cell door.
They brought in a new crate of food and a barrel of water before leaving again.
Climbing down from my bed, I grabbed some bread and meat from the crate and walked toward the arena while eating.
More than a year had passed, but the routine was always the same.
Reaching the open metal gate, I was greeted by an empty arena and a pair of guards sitting near the entrance, playing some kind of card game.
I walked past them and stopped beside the weapon rack. My hands brushed over the familiar pommel of my longsword before I pulled it out and placed it over my shoulder while heading toward a corner of the arena.
Over time, I had somehow started training in the exact same spot every day.
It was a small patch of sand near the wall. The platform where John usually stood was right above it in the stands.
That had become my spot.
I had started training there once…and never changed it.
Lifting the sword from my shoulder, I planted my feet shoulder-width apart and raised it into position.
Step.
I moved forward and began my training with a diagonal slash.
Shing.
There wasn't much else I could do during training. I practiced slashes and stabs, focusing on refining the form and speed of every movement.
It could be said that I fine-tuned the details.
Over time, my swordsmanship and mana control had improved greatly. So much that I sometimes practiced different styles just to keep myself from getting bored.
At the beginning, my swordsmanship had felt crude.
I knew the basics, but using them in real fights was still difficult. It felt more like separate moves than one flowing motion.
Real swordmasters linked one move to the next, creating a sequence of attacks that became a technique. But I had only reacted to my opponents' attacks, throwing out one move after another without any real flow.
And there had always been that unfamiliar feeling when I held the sword.
It felt unnatural and foreign.
But that had changed.
By now, I had trained every slash, stab, and guard so often that using a sword felt as natural as any other movement of my arms.
Like reaching for a cup of water.
The unfamiliar feeling had vanished a long time ago.
But that wasn't all.
The techniques I had learned at the Ashspire estate were no longer enough for me. I had started to modify the basic movements to my liking.
The foundation of swordsmanship was simple—slashes and stabs. But in real combat, variation was necessary.
So I created my own versions.
Changing angles.
Altering trajectories.
Adapting strikes to target weak points.
Slowly, my swordsmanship evolved beyond the original forms. Into something that could be called my own style.
But I didn't rely only on the sword.
I had also incorporated something else into my fights.
In short—
CQC.
Close Quarters Combat.
Something I had learned during my time in the military on Earth.
CQC is essentially a close combat situation between single combatants, which includes both ranged and melee combat techniques.
There was also CQB—Close Quarters Battle—which involved multiple combatants.
The interesting thing about CQC is that while it sounds like only hand-to-hand combat, it also includes firearms.
That was the most surprising part for me.
At first, I had always assumed CQC meant punches, kicks, and knives. But in reality, even handguns were used in CQC.
Either way, CQC focused on fighting at extremely short distances—where reaction time was minimal.
It included:
Hand-to-hand combat
Close-range weapons.
Short-range firearms.
What I used alongside my sword were techniques I had learned during military CQC training.
For example:
Strikes like jabs, hooks, and uppercuts.
Kicks like front kicks, calf kicks, and round kicks.
Grappling moves like headlocks, clinches, and arm locks.
Throws like leg sweeps, hip throws, and trip takedowns.
And blocks.
The techniques themselves were quite effective since most of the teens had never seen anything similar to them and didn't know how to react properly. Adding them to my swordsmanship created a fast and lethal fighting style.
Even more so because I had another advantage.
My shackles.
I used them constantly.
Strikes and kicks aimed so that the metal shackles around my wrists or ankles struck first. Or blocks and guards were I used my shackles as a shield, intercepting their strikes.
The shackles that even the blacksmiths couldn't break became the perfect defensive tools.
I fused CQC techniques with my swordmanship and created something that came close to my very own Weapon Art.
Built around two simple goals.
Survival and killing.
Relearning all the techniques from Earth had been hard. I hadn't used them much after all. And I injured myself a lot of times during battles as I made mistakes or missed the right timing. But after enough practice, I perfected these techniques and used them constantly to make swift victories.
But my combat skills weren't the only things that improved during that time. My mana control had also developed tremendously.
A year of constant training had paid off.
The mana lines I had created were now running through my entire body, supplying it with mana at all times.
Even while I slept.
They had become as natural to me as breathing. I no longer needed to focus or think about them.
They simply existed.
Like the blood flowing through my veins.
And like blood, they had become.
The mana lines turned into something similar to a second circulatory system. They connected the core in my heart to all my limbs and every muscle, even my head.
But I didn't only improve the lines themselves.
My usage of mana had changed as well.
Before, I had to consciously think and direct mana into specific muscles while moving.
Now that was no longer necessary.
Enhancement was integrated into every movement I did, and happened without me doing anything. Instinctively or subconsciously, even.
It was like reaching for a cup of water.
If you want to drink some water, you don't have to think about reaching for the cup.
You just do it.
There was no command or delay in your head before the movement.
You just moved.
And the same applied to my mana now.
When I punched, the correct muscles enhanced themselves automatically without me consciously thinking about it.
This applied to all my movements.
But my senses were a different matter. I had taken a different approach when it came to them.
Learning that I could enhance my eyes, ears, and nose with mana had been like a revelation.
Stronger vision.
Sharper hearing.
Better smell.
Enhancing my senses made my combat techniques even more devastating.
But there was a side effect.
The added sensations I felt and experienced were too much for my brain to handle. It was just too much information at once.
Too many sounds.
Too many smells.
Too much detail.
It made me feel dizzy.
My head would hurt after using them for too long. But there was a simple way to overcome this.
Adaption.
I had to just adapt to it.
Seeing too much at once?
Hearing too many sounds?
Smelling too strongly?
Then I will just use them repeatedly until my body adjusts to them.
That had been my plan.
The reality?
Vomiting hundreds of times a day. Headaches that felt like my skull would split open. Sounds so loud that even the smallest noise would feel like my eardrums exploded.
Adapting to those sensations had been torture.
I had given up.
Then tried again.
Then gave up again.
Again and again.
Until eventually…
I discovered something.
I could adjust the intensity of my enhanced senses.
If I could increase or decrease the strength of a punch by controlling how much mana I used. Then the same should be possible for my senses.
Quite logical, right?
Not for me.
It took me months of torture until I found out about it.
I even discovered it by accident.
One day during training, I had almost exhausted my mana completely and couldn't fully enhance my senses anymore. And that was when I realized that I could control the intensity of the enhancement.
Since then, I have controlled the amount of mana I used and maintained a low-level enhancement constantly.
Just like with my mana lines.
At a lower intensity, the side effects were manageable. Gradually, my body adapted to them.
Then, when I had completely adapted to it. I would use more mana, slightly increasing the intensity, and adapt again.
Now my senses remained enhanced at all times.
Not at full power.
That was still too much for me.
But strong enough for daily life and combat. And if I ever found myself in a situation where I needed sharper senses, I could just increase the output for a short time.
Finally…
There was the idea I had at the beginning about mana depletion.
To deplete my mana completely and bring myself into a state of mana exhaustion.
I thought that it could increase my mana pool.
So I tried it.
I drained my mana completely.
Again and again.
Did it work?
No.
My mana pool never increased. If anything, it probably sabotaged my training.
There were only disadvantages.
Constant exhaustion.
Headaches.
And a higher risk of dying during fights.
The only real benefit was that I had gained more proficiency in controlling mana.